Advice for 1st semester nursing students.

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Specializes in ICU/ Trauma/ Med-Surg.

As you begin your first semester of nursing school, it can be TERRIFYING and OVERWHELMING with information thrown at you. I am a third-semester nursing student and tutor first and second-semester nursing students. While tutoring, I have noticed a few things. So let me give you some advice on how to be successful in your first semester and remaining semesters thereafter.

Buy a planner or use the planner on your phone.

This will help you stay organized with all the assignments and exams you'll have.

Record your lectures.

I have found that recording lecture is very helpful and it allows you to go back to the class to fill in things you may have missed. *tip* glance at your recorder when starting a new page or topic so that you can write down the time and quickly reference that part of the lecture later.

Take good notes and read your textbook.

This is not high school or your pre-requisites anymore. You need to read and think outside the box, make yourself critically think throughout the material. Do NOT just try to memorize, this will come back to haunt you later when you're in the second semester and the professor assumes you already know the basics.

Join/Form a study group.

This will help you tremendously. Study groups should be small (5 people at the most) and they should be treated like class. Don't invite people who are distracting or people that will slow you down.

Use your book resources.

Do the online practice questions that come with your textbook, they will help you get a feel for how the professor may present questions on your exam.

Have fun and make new friends.

Don't stick to yourself and be a loner. Nursing school is tough, and you and your classmates will need each other. Trust me.

Review your test.

This will allow you to see what you missed on the exam and will help you guide your focus for your cumulative finals.

Learn your pathophysiology!

Learn your pathophysiology! Learn it! Understand it thoroughly! Whatever you do, do NOT slack in this class. It is the foundation for every other class you'll have and doing well will help you so much when you're in MedSurg and you are trying to learn interventions. It just makes everything easier, to understand the disease process.

These are things I've noticed students slack on or didn't do their first semester and now ultimately they struggle in the semesters thereafter. Read your book, study every day and you'll do great. Do not expect the professor to teach you every little detail, because there's not enough time in class for that. Hold yourself accountable and learn as much as you can! Good luck. Hope this helps someone!

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Thank you for the information. I will be taking your advice when I start nursing school this fall.

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And should I buy any note cards like pharmacology cards or something else to help prepare me?

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Thanks! Awesome advice. I do need to familiarize myself with my phone's calendar. Any advice on what we should do or read before starting first semester?

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Specializes in ICU/ Trauma/ Med-Surg.
And should I buy any note cards like pharmacology cards or something else to help prepare me?

Personally, I don't use notes cards but a lot of students do. I like to use Quizlet, which is like online note cards because it's really convenient and they even have an App for it. I typically just make a quizlet and include the stuff that is giving me trouble, or the stuff such as lab values, signs and symptoms, etc. Some stuff you just can't avoid "memorizing", but don't try it for everything. Talk yourself through the material and connect the dots. And if you want something to help you get familiar with the type of questions you'll see in nursing school, there are many apps with practice NCLEX style questions. The app I like to use is called "NCLEXRN".

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Specializes in ICU/ Trauma/ Med-Surg.
Thanks! Awesome advice. I do need to familiarize myself with my phone's calendar. Any advice on what we should do or read before starting first semester?

Depending on how well you did in your A&P class, I'd suggest reviewing some of that. Just general things such as the different body systems and how things function. This will help you a lot, when you're in health assessment and pathophysiology. Most importantly, enjoy your free time before you start and take care of things around the house or other errands because when you start the program, there's not much free time to do those things. Best of luck to you!

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Ok. Thanks for the response and I will be using quizlet.

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do you have any advice on reviewing AP? It has been a year since I took the classes, and I want to just so a refresh.

and what about mental math? I'm not very quick with it, and want to practice it more

thank you so much for the.advice!

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Specializes in ICU/ Trauma/ Med-Surg.
do you have any advice on reviewing AP? It has been a year since I took the classes, and I want to just so a refresh.

and what about mental math? I'm not very quick with it, and want to practice it more

thank you so much for the.advice!

I think it would be most beneficial to refresh on the major body systems such as; Cardiac, Respiratory, Neuro, Endocrine, Hepatic, and then if you feel it's necessary do other systems as well. I certainly wouldn't refresh on all the different land marks of the bones and stuff like that. But definitely the aforementioned. For example, review the blood flow through the heart and how the heart works, like what occurs during systole and diastole, or the electrical conduction of the heart. I mean I wouldn't stress myself out about it, because your professor's will briefly review some of the basics your first semester BUT I will say, having a decent understanding of the Anatomy going into your first semester will help you TREMENDOUSLY. Honestly, you'll get out of it, what you put in. You're already taking the initiative by asking how to prepare.

As far as mental math honestly, it will just come to you after a while. For my school, if there are math questions on the exam, they give us a calculator to do them. I promise, the math you'll learn in nursing school isn't very difficult. An example of a math question; "calculate the flow rate for the following order, Rx:100mL of Normal Saline infused over 2 hours." All you need to do in order to solve this question is divide your given amount (100mL) by the allotted time (2 hours). So your flow rate would be 50mL/hr. There are more difficult type questions, but they aren't even that bad. You can Google "practice dosage calculation questions for nurses" or "practice math questions for nursing students" and you'll find numerous websites with practice questions.

Hope this helps! Best of luck to you 😀🤓

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Ok. Thanks for the response and I will be using quizlet.

If you use pre-made sets from quizlet be sure you check the info first. Some of the sets are completely wrong.

I made my own note cards for everything. I found that focusing on assessment and nursing concerns was most effective for me. Writing the information (especially with different colored pens) helped me to recall/visualize info when testing.

I also highly recommend getting the NCLEX RN Mastery app once you begin your nursing courses. I use them to study for exams it's gray to have study material always in my pocket.

If your school uses ATI, do the tutorials and utilize the books. I have carried at least one of them around with me everyday since starting.

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Specializes in ICU/ Trauma/ Med-Surg.
If you use pre-made sets from quizlet be sure you check the info first. Some of the sets are completely wrong.

I made my own note cards for everything. I found that focusing on assessment and nursing concerns was most effective for me. Writing the information (especially with different colored pens) helped me to recall/visualize info when testing.

I also highly recommend getting the NCLEX RN Mastery app once you begin your nursing courses. I use them to study for exams it's gray to have study material always in my pocket.

If your school uses ATI, do the tutorials and utilize the books. I have carried at least one of them around with me everyday since starting.

I totally agree, the pre-made quizlets can be wrong, that's why I makemy own as well. And I like the NCLEX RN MASTERY as well, but only use the free version. I've also found "The Study Guide for the NCLEX RN" to be a nice resource and it comes with access to 2000 practice questions, you can pick it up on Amazon for around $30.

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Thanks for the information. I will be taking your advice on making my own note cards and using the nclex rn mastery app.

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